After Everything
by Venus Smurf
Summary: MinaMal. He would often wonder, after everything was over and she was already gone, why he hadn’t seen it coming. Nominated for best SMRC angstromanceongoing fic!


**A.N.: **Well, after almost two years, I'm finally back and writing again. This is only going to be a one-shot, but let me know what you think.

Also, I'm going to be redoing "Roommates" and could use some input. I was scanning back through the story, and I noticed that a lot of the ideas in it are just plain stupid. I'm thinking of getting rid of the whole painting thing, as well as the blood stuff. You people are smarter than I am, so what do you think? Comments and ideas would be welcome.

Oh, and I don't yet have a new email address, but I should be getting one within the next few weeks. I'll get up with my beloved betas then.

VenusSmurfVenusSmurfVenusSmurfVenusSmurfVenusSmurfVenusSmurf

"After Everything"

They met in a hotel bar. It was a classy sort of place, one where the patrons wore expensive suits and uniformed waiters glided silently between spotless tables. It was the kind of place where even the very drunk never raised their voices, and classical music played gently in the background. It was an almost peaceful place, really, and the irony of that would never cease to disturb him, later. Who would have guessed that such a setting would be the birthplace of a relationship as tumultuous and passionate as theirs would become? Who could have known what lay ahead?

He would often wonder, after everything was over and she was already gone, why he hadn't seen it coming. He should have realized that nothing with her had ever been what it seemed, that everything she pretended to be was a lie, but he hadn't. He hadn't realized what his actions and his words would lead to that day, hadn't recognized the moment when he'd walked so blindly into her trap. He would try to tell himself that anyone would have fallen for the sad eyes and wistful smile, for the false innocence and even more false vulnerability, but he would never really believe that himself. _Something _in him should have warned him, should have helped him see how easily she was manipulating him, but nothing ever had, and he'd lost himself in her far too quickly.

He would never even know what had prompted him to approach her. She was half his age, barely even legal and still more girl than woman, and he should have known something was wrong from the moment she'd first turned her stunning blue eyes to his. Those eyes had been a little too distant, a little too hard for the distraught college girl she was pretending to be. He'd sat beside her anyway, had gone against his own unsympathetic nature by listening to the troubles she'd invented for herself, by instinctively trying to comfort her and ease concerns that weren't real. He'd taken her home with him afterwards, though of course that hadn't been his goal when he'd first gone to her, had held her all night in his arms, lips and hands caressing her as knowingly as if they'd been lovers for years instead of only hours. It wasn't until their bodies had come together a second and a third time that he'd thought to ask her name.

And then morning had come, the soft rays of the dawn spilling over them from the bedroom window and glinting in her blonde hair. She'd whispered a few mumbled words of protest against the light, trying in vain to curl her slender form more comfortably against his. Awareness slowly returned in spite of her efforts, and she'd stiffened as she'd remembered who she was and what she had done. Still, even then she hadn't betrayed herself, hadn't revealed her true motives. She'd simply moved against him once more, distracting him with more skill than a girl who'd been untouched only the night before should have shown.

And, oh, _gods, _had he been distracted. He'd caved almost instantly to his desires, had let her take control. When it was over, he'd found himself asking—_begging­_—to see her again. She'd agreed, putting just enough hesitancy into her answer to make him feel absurdly honored, as though her condescending to even talk to him was more than he deserved. He'd smiled just a little too eagerly and tried to kiss her again, and only then did her eyes harden and her head turn away. He would hardly have thought, after all they'd done the night before, that one simple and rather chaste kiss would faze her, but he would realize, later, that it had. Maybe it was the very innocence of that would-be kiss that had thrown her—what had come before was hardly innocent, and perhaps that had made it easer. It was easier, he'd found, to soil yourself with a lie when you were already soiled.

He had to give her credit, though, because she never turned away again. She'd always let him do what he wanted with her, and eventually she'd stopped even pretending to hesitate. Often enough, _she _was the one to initiate their encounters, and since he could never think of any ulterior purpose for that, he tried to console himself with the thought that at least her enthusiasm for his touch hadn't been feigned. When she'd occasionally told him that he was a good lover, she'd probably meant it.

Knowing that didn't help too much when the loneliness set in.

He'd fallen too hard for her, too hard and much too fast, and he hadn't given himself enough time to think this through and realize what was going on. They'd been together only a few short months when he'd offered her a key to his home, and only a few days later she'd officially moved in. He'd gotten a fair amount of teasing from his friends over that—if _envious _teasing—because nobody, even Malachite, really knew what she saw in him. She was too alive, and he was too quiet and stern, and nobody would ever have believed they could make it work. They were just too different. Still, not even his affectionately skeptical friends questioned the matter too deeply, and of course Mina didn't have anyone to object over her choices.

At least he'd had sense enough for _that _to bother him. Mina was the type of girl everyone loved, but in all their time together, she'd never once mentioned a single friend or relative. She didn't seem to have any, and that just didn't fit her personality. Then again, his young lover sometimes tended to hold herself just slightly aloof from everyone else, even him. She never talked about herself or her past, and any time he tried to question her or push the issue, she would only…_distract _him again. She was good at that, and he wouldn't realize until much later that she'd done it yet again. He'd been upset by it at first, but he'd also feared chasing her away with too many questions that she so obviously didn't want to answer, and so eventually he'd simply stopped asking. Still, he could see why Mina lacked the same deep friendships that even he had formed. She didn't let anyone get truly close to her, and anyway Mina's smile held too many secrets. She was an easy person to love, but she wasn't exactly a comfortable person to _keep _loving. He was always left wondering what she was keeping from him, what thoughts or emotions she wasn't sharing as a proper lover should.

And yet, even that didn't make him nearly as suspicious as it should have. He'd always been an intensely private man himself, and so he was able to forgive the lack of trust Mina's reticence implied. In the end, he was too grateful to have such a girl in his life to complain about her emotional elusiveness. He could, in light of all she gave him in return, allow her a few quirks, couldn't he? Even later, though, following the quiet, candlelit dinner at home when he'd gone on one knee before her and offered his heart and his hand, he hadn't caught on. She'd gone still, staring in utter shock at the diamond he'd wanted to slip on her finger almost since that first morning together, but he'd only misinterpreted the regret in her blue eyes for something else entirely. He'd thought that maybe, in spite of everything, she didn't love him enough to marry him, or that she'd never taken this as seriously as he had, that she hadn't wanted him after all.

She hadn't, but not for the reasons he'd thought, not because he was too old for her—thirty-three years to her nineteen—or because he was too quiet. No, she hadn't wanted him because he was nothing but prey to her, an all too easy and certainly too eager mark, and this was taking the game farther than she'd intended.

And so, whatever the reason, she'd refused, seemingly genuine tears welling up in her stunning eyes as she'd tried to explain why she was breaking his heart. "I'm sorry," she'd whispered, and for once her lyrical voice had held little charm for him, "but I never meant for this to happen. I'd never wanted you to love me."

He still hadn't quite understood, at least not then, and not even when she'd told him that she didn't love him, that she never could. Understanding would come later, long after he'd ordered her to leave, long after his devastation had turned to anger. He simply _couldn't _have comprehended, at the time, how or why Mina could have spent the last few months pretending to care for him, how she could have given herself to him when she'd never really wanted him. Why had she even been with him, then? In later nights, when he woke alone and missing her warmth, he would begin to question everything. Had she ever really felt happiness with him, or had even her laughter been false? He would never be able to think of a single reason for any of it, though, and that just made him more bitter against her. There hadn't been a purpose behind her cruelty, it seemed, and that only made it worse.

He tried forgetting her. There didn't seem to be anything else he could do, but it was hard. He'd put too much energy into loving her to just forget, and he missed her too much, as well. He missed the careful joy he'd sometimes surprised her into showing, missed the cheerful chaos she'd brought into his life. He missed even the feel of her tiny fingers entwined in his, and it was hard to let go of that.

And it was equally hard to hate her. She'd made him too happy, even if their time together had been so short, and while there were certainly days when he prayed to never see her again, there were more when he feared for her. Where was she? What was she doing? Was she as alone as he now felt, or had she already moved on to someone else? Had he been any less of a man, he might have wept every time he came home and she wasn't there, but had he been more of a man, he probably would have gotten drunk a little less often.

The months passed without her, then a year, then two, and by then he had almost convinced himself that he was no longer looking for her, that any glimpse of blonde didn't make his heart constrict and his head turn. He'd certainly began to believe that he would never see her again, that she was lost to him and that he would never know what she'd wanted or what she'd been looking for in him. As much time as had gone by, maybe it no longer mattered. He still hadn't decided if he'd forgiven her yet, but he'd almost forgotten why forgiveness was even important. Mostly he just missed her.

She came to him the night of his thirty-fifth birthday. He'd spent the day alone, getting unpleasantly drunk and dutifully ignoring the small stack of presents and cards his friends had sent, but the doorbell rang too insistently to be tuned out. He growled and went to yell at whatever misguided well-wisher might be on the other side, but instead he found _her_, and the complaints died.

She didn't look any older, though there had always been a strangely ageless quality in the delicate lines of her face, and he honestly wouldn't have expected it. She did seem a little thinner, a little more tired, a little more pale, but that somehow only made her more beautiful. He couldn't have said any more that she wasn't a woman, not when she had so much of a woman's pain in her eyes. He wondered if he was the cause of it, if she could see the same unhappiness in his gaze as he did in hers.

She didn't wait for him to speak first. She hesitated only for a second, then simply stepped past him into what had once been their home. She looked around, eyes scanning the main room, lingering on the items she'd left behind, the ones he still hadn't been able to move or throw away. Perhaps they were all the answer she needed, because as she turned to face him again, some of the tension had gone out of her face, and she was smiling faintly. "I was afraid that you hated me," she said, and he found himself thrilling to her voice just as he always had before that ugly day two years ago.

Still, pain had taught him caution, and he only shrugged. "I did."

The _I don't anymore _went unspoken, but she heard that, too, and his answer didn't make her hesitate at all. She only nodded. "And now?"

He sighed, wondering why this wasn't easier to say. He'd certainly thought it, often enough. Finally, he simply shrugged again. "I missed you too much," he told her, and she knew what he meant then, as well.

_I'll always love you._

She smiled, and if her smile still held too many secrets, there was also the promise of a confession to come in it. "I loved you too much," she said in return, voicing both their thoughts in an almost-explanation of her own, and this time he couldn't bring himself to doubt the tears in her crystalline gaze. "I came back as soon as I could."

She also sighed, and for a moment he could see in her eyes the briefest hint of a truth she'd known he wasn't quite ready to hear, of the battles and the enemies that had kept her from returning sooner, of the friends she'd denied having for their own sakes. Someday she would tell him all, would help him remember the past she'd come chasing that day in the hotel bar, but not now. _Now _was for learning to trust again, to love again. The rest could wait.

Some deeper, older part of himself felt all that, but his younger self still had to ask. "Why did you do it?"

_Why did you make me love you, and then leave me?_

She sighed yet again, but they both knew she couldn't afford to hesitate any more. "You hurt me once," she murmured, "and even though I know you don't remember, I had to see if you could still hurt me. I had to see if I could spend so much time with you and still be strong enough to walk away." She grimaced. "And maybe I wanted to hurt you back, to make you care for me just a little so you could go through what I did, but I never thought you would _love _me, and I stopped wanting to hurt you when I realized that you did."

He considered that. As explanations went, it was a poor one, but he found that it was enough for now. There would be time for details later, for learning of the hurt he'd given her so long ago, of her many other motives in seeking him. At the moment, there was only one more question that really mattered. "Will you marry me now?"

She smiled again, but this time it was shy and sweet and hid nothing of what she felt from him. "Yes."

That was all he'd needed. He'd been so careful until now to keep his distance, to not touch her for fear of what he would do, but before she could even catch her breath his arms were around her, his lips on hers, hungry and demanding proof of what she'd said. She gave it, returning his kiss and wrapping her own arms around his neck, losing herself in him just as he once had in her.

It wasn't the perfect ending. It couldn't be, because there was still too much she hadn't told him. A reckoning was to come, a series of confessions that neither of them would like, a revelation of an ugly truth Malachite had been so determined to forget. Sometime in the coming months she would give him back his past, but for now she was also giving him—giving _them_—a future, and that was sufficient.

It wasn't the perfect ending, but it was certainly a good beginning.


End file.
